


soldered

by kurgaya



Series: firestain [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Don't copy to another site, Family Feels, Gen, Ninken | Ninja Dogs, Original Character(s), Sakumo Lives, Sickfic, Tetsu no Kuni | Land of Iron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27083968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/pseuds/kurgaya
Summary: The only family Kakashi remembers is his father, but Sakumo's not here anymore, just like everyone else. He teeters in place, panic burning like fever across his face. He has to find his father - before anything happens. No-one here has any reason to be kind. Konoha wasn't. Momo said he left with some samurai, but what if they took him away?[Sakumo Leaves AU. Kakashi wakes up in a strange place with strange people, and his father is gone].
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Hatake Sakumo, Hatake Kakashi & Original Hatake Character(s)
Series: firestain [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951453
Comments: 26
Kudos: 99





	soldered

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, this fic (now a series, yikes!) is OC-heavy. We're with Kakashi this time, getting a glimpse into his thoughts. Bratty kid Kakashi is so much fun.

Kakashi's face feels like one of the wolves slept on it. His eyes are crusty as he peels them open. Dry skin cracks around his nose. His mouth tastes like a wolf, too, and he spits fur from his tongue. The wolf to blame appears snout-first under the futon, and Kakashi laughs, coughs, and struggles to breathe as Tomo slobbers over his face. She's big enough to eat him in a couple of bites, but it seems being licked to death is the way he'll go. Kakashi squirms and shoves her away, and Tomo rolls across the futon, laughing.

"Aww, pup, you taste terrible!"

"I'm sick," Kakashi grumbles, throwing the futon aside. He hates to admit it. Everything he touches is hot and sweaty, and he aches right down to his bones. He sniffs noisily and scrubs at his nose, smearing Tomo's saliva all over his face. He shoots her a glare.

"Love you too," Tomo sing-songs.

She's far too energetic for Kakashi on a normal day - and today’s far from a normal day. He rubs between his eyes, face twisting. The morning light through the shoji is sharp and white. It’s giving him a headache. It’s not normally so light in the mornings in the shadow of the Nara Forest, and Kakashi remembers where he is all at once. Tenzaburō, in the Land of Iron. His father brought them here all the way from Konoha, and for days they endured the cold. Kakashi can barely recall the journey, but the demon-horned samurai and their overexcited dog are vivid in his mind. After that, his memories are a blur of wood and snow. There were mountains - and a wall. The samurai shone in silver armour like giants. They must have reached the city and found a place to rest. The room Kakashi's in is tatami-laid and empty except for himself, Tomo, and Momo. He must have fallen asleep - and his father must have been here to summon two of his wolves.

Kakashi's clothes and mask sit in a pile by the futon. He reaches for the mask.

"Where's dad?"

"He left with some samurai this morning," Momo says, effortlessly calm compared to her sister. She stretches out with a cat-like regality at the foot of the bed, effortlessly calm in the face of Kakashi's horror, too.

" _Left_?" Kakashi demands, scrambling into his clothes. "What do you mean? Where did he go? Is he coming back?"

"Of course he's -"

Kakashi doesn't wait for the answer. He leaps over Tomo and throws open one of the doors. It clacks like a clap of thunder into its frame. Instead of leading out into the hall like he hopes, it reveals another small room. This one has a low, black table in the centre and a collection of green cushions, and sat on two of them is a pair of adults. Kakashi freezes. The man is vaguely familiar: blond-haired, round-faced, and smiling between two enormous ears. The woman has a bundle of tightly-curled white hair on her head, and it bounces as she looks up from her sewing.

"Hey, the kid lives," laughs the man. It’s an infectious sound. "How’re you feeling?"

A cold snout knocks Kakashi's head. One of the wolves nudges him into the room. Kakashi stumbles forward a few steps before locking himself in place with chakra.

"Who're you?"

"Uh oh, I think your brain might be scrambled. I'm Naruhito, I made you drink that awful medicine yesterday, you remember? I'm looking after you and your dad."

Naruhito is almost as cheery as Tomo. Kakashi’s not sure how to handle such joy. He expects it from the dogs because they’re _dogs_ , but Naruhito is a samurai. And a medic. Kakashi thinks back to arriving in Tenzaburō, to a stone tower and a letter, and his father clutching him close. Recognition tingles in his head and his head tingles with pain. He fights to speak through a surge of nausea.

"Samurai... Shizen?"

Naruhito grins. "That's me! But we’re family, so call me Naruhito. This is Makaze - you bumped into her husband yesterday. Wasn't that lucky?"

That must mean Samurai Kyōsuke - or whatever his other name is. Kakashi struggles to remember it. His thoughts linger on Naruhito's words: 'we're family'. The only family Kakashi remembers is his father, but Sakumo's not here anymore, just like everyone else. Kakashi teeters in place, panic burning like fever across his face. He has to find his father - before anything happens. No-one here has any reason to be kind. Konoha wasn't. Momo said he left with some samurai, but what if they took him away?

"Naru, he's as white as a sheet," Makaze says, just as Kakashi tips back into Momo and drops to the floor.

Sight and sound crash like a blizzard around him, deafening and cold. Snowflakes dance in front of his eyes and smother him to blackness, and then he wakes up with no recollection of falling, curled up on the floor. Beige fur fills his vision. He feels it all around him, soft and coarse. Sounds melt back into his ears; first, growling, loud and low, and then two calming voices in tandem. Kakashi blinks until everything makes sense.

"And he lives again," Naruhito says. "Take it slow, kiddo, it ain't been easy for you. Don't want you hurting yourself. When you're ready to move, let's get you back to bed, okay?"

"He's fine here," Momo argues, her teeth bared. She's all but laying over Kakashi and her tail sweeps past his hair. She's heavy. He tries shoving her off but it's futile. Her ears twitch towards him, but that's the only acknowledgement he receives.

"He'll be finer in a bed," Naruhito says, still smiling. Momo's fangs don't seem to deter him. "You can sit on him there, if you'd like, but he needs rest. He's in no condition to go anywhere."

"No," Kakashi snaps, pushing harder. Momo's head swings to him. "I need to find dad. Let me up, I'm -"

Hands hook under Kakashi's arms and snatch him from beneath Momo's weight. The world rushes past in black and brown, and Kakashi finds himself high up over the floor, his face mushed into Makaze's hair. She's _carrying_ him. He pushes away from her shoulder with an indignant cry; and not too far out of reach, for Sakumo's wolves are incredibly large, Momo mirrors the sound.

Makaze smiles. This close, Kakashi can count every copper freckle on her face; and there must be hundreds of them. His dad has freckles, too, fainter and few. They speckle the skin under his eyes and around his nose, and Kakashi always liked the oddity of them. Kakashi's face is blank but for a stupid mole by his mouth, and he can't help but wonder if he's the odd-one-out in the family. Then he scowls and turns away, refusing to compare himself to a stranger. It doesn't matter if he looks like Makaze or not - and he doesn't. Her face is rounder and cheerful, and although her eyes are dark, they sparkle. Her wonky grin and dark make-up remind Kakashi of another face he knew long ago.

"How old are you, Kakashi?" Makaze asks.

Kakashi glares at one of the cushions. "Five."

"Five, huh? That's a little older than my daughter. She likes to wander off and get herself into the silliest of places. I spend half of my day looking for her, I swear. I don’t think your dad’ll want that, do you?”

Kakashi’s not sure what his dad wants anymore.

"I'm not going to _wander off_. I'll find him."

Makaze lifts him a little higher. He snatches the back of her shirt without thinking, and Momo whines from the floor. He could make Makaze drop him in a second. A burst of chakra; a flick of a blade. He knows how to hurt a person. He was going to take the chūnin exam this year and prove he could kill. His father kills people all of the time, but Kakashi’s never done it himself. He glares at the curly hairs on the back of Makaze’s neck and feels his hands shake. Nausea gurgles in his stomach. He squeezes his eyes shut and doesn’t open them until Makaze tucks him back into bed.

Both of the wolves sit on him now, their heads and paws and whatever they can fit in his lap. Kakashi turns his face from the snow-light and watches Naruhito bob into the room. He makes Kakashi drink something awful and then folds a wet towel across his head. It’s cold. It’s better than Tomo’s slobber but Kakashi won’t thank him for it.

“I’m serious, kid, get some sleep,” Naruhito says. He brushes Kakashi’s fringe aside and Momo growls. Naruhito snatches his hand away, still smiling. “All right, all right. I’ll leave him to you. Call me if anything changes, Maz.”

Makaze rolls her eyes. “You’ll have kids one day, you big coward,” she calls, her voice rising as Naruhito retreats into the other room. “Then what’ll you do?”

Naruhito’s laughter fades through the house. Makaze smiles as though she’s helpless not to, as though her accusation is a joke, but Kakashi’s not sure. He bites down on his tongue. _Coward_ is an insult Konoha liked to throw around. His father used to bare his teeth when he heard it - and he rarely snarls at anyone. The Inuzuka had the teeth and the temper, and Kakashi came to expect fang-tipped smiles from them. Sometimes, he forgets his father has the wolf-teeth. He’s never bared them at Kakashi. After The Mission, they seemed to consume Sakumo’s face, and all anyone saw were teeth. But then the months passed and Sakumo let anybody say anything about him, and Kakashi started hurling kunai at crowds.

It’s a horrible word. _Coward_. The only word Kakashi likes less is _traitor_.

He holds his tongue as Makaze busies about. He can’t risk her anger when he doesn’t know what she’s capable of. It’s not his _job_ to defend Naruhito, either, and Kakashi casts the man from his mind. He needs to focus on his dad and no one else. Even if these people are their family.

He coughs into the futon. The medicine from Naruhito has soothed his throat, but his face still feels hot. It reminds him of the sunburn he got last summer, and how he tried to hide it under his mask. His skin had peeled and itched for days. Kakashi doesn’t want to be stuck in bed for that long, but it doesn’t seem like Momo or Tomo will let him escape so easily now.

“You comfy?” Makaze asks. She’s brought a cushion and her sewing from the other room, so she must be planning to stay. “You’ll be feeling better soon, don’t worry. And your dad won’t be much longer. He’s gone to see the General.”

“Who?”

“He’s in charge of the village. Konoha’s a shinobi village, isn’t it? Do you have a General?”

“No. We have a Hokage.” He wonders how similar they are. Lord Third handles all of the shinobi-related matters in the country, and he’s supposed to report to the daimyō, who looks after the whole country. Kakashi’s never seen the daimyō in Konoha before, so he can’t be looking after things that well. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we? We’re foreign shinobi. We left our village.”

Makaze blinks like a rabbit behind her glasses. “Well, your _dad_ is definitely a foreign shinobi, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s in trouble. Gran-Gran’s with him, he’ll be all right.”

Gran-Gran, that stern-faced woman who called Sakumo ‘stupid’. Kakashi grinds his teeth together and says nothing. He closes his eyes and pretends to sleep, and eventually he hears Makaze settle down by the door. Her perfume lingers. Kakashi peeks over the duvet to see her focused on sewing.

“Momo,” he whispers, pulling the wolf closer. “Can you keep an eye on her?”

Momo glances at Makaze, her ears perked. Her eyes are yellow and wary; she’s the most distrusting of Sakumo’s pack. She licks Kakashi’s cheek. “Sure, pup. But please try and get some sleep. I promise I’ll wake you when Sakumo returns.”

Kakashi doesn’t have much of a choice. He doubts his father could escape from under _two_ wolves, and Naruhito’s medicine must be doing something right, because Kakashi is warm, and tired, and he doesn’t ache as much as before. Begrudgingly, he yanks the duvet up to his nose and pulls down his mask to breathe easier. Everything still tastes weird, including the air. He misses the scent of the forest and the sky after rain. He misses the smell of their dusty house less, but the rooms were darker, and the lights cosy. He liked the way the windows lit up when it stormed.

Somehow, he finds sleep. It’s fitful and brief, and he wakes in a rush when Momo and Tomo disappear. They vanish back to their plane in puffs of smoke, both at once, and Kakashi bolts upright at the sudden freedom. Makaze is gone, too, but the door is open. Blood rushes in Kakashi’s ears like the howl of the snow. He’s halfway out of bed before his father appears, but Kakashi’s relief is short-lived. Three more people fill the room, all of them strangers. Two of them are lightly armoured, and the third is wearing a thick, black robe. All three bear katana and crests, but all of the crests are different from each other. The man with the sandy hair has a circular crest that Kakashi thinks he’s seen before.

“Kakashi, come here,” Sakumo calls. He’s not wearing a coat, and Kakashi can see thick, black lines curving around his wrists and up his forearms. It looks like ink. They shimmer slightly as Kakashi nears, moving like rain-water over his father’s skin. The shadows under Sakumo’s eyes are no darker than usual, and though his expression is pinched, he doesn’t appear to be in pain. He looks weary. He’s looked weary for weeks.

Kakashi does as he’s told. Past the strangers and the doorway, he sees Makaze and Samurai Kyōsuke with their heads bowed together. Makaze’s face is a storm.

“He’s _five_ ,” she cries. “He _can’t_ be -”

The man in the black cloak unrolls a small scroll and tears off a section. He splits this section into two of equal size, and Kakashi’s eyes catch on the familiar characters. He doesn’t know much about sealing jutsu, but he recognises the basic formulae. He didn’t think the Land of Iron _used_ fuinjutsu - but the seals on Sakumo’s arms tell otherwise.

“Chakra suppression,” Kakashi guesses, glaring at the sealer.

No-one confirms his suspicion, but they don’t need to. Sakumo’s hand strokes the top of Kakashi’s head.

“Roll up your sleeves,” says the sealer. “This seal will prevent you from moulding chakra into your hands. If there is evidence of anyone tampering with or removing this seal, unless that person is myself or under orders from the General, you will be detained. Do you understand?”

Kakashi’s not sure what ‘detained’ means, but he nods. The sealer wraps the paper around Kakashi’s left forearm and activates it with chakra. The seal glows bright enough to burn through the paper, but just before Kakashi assumes it will burn, the light fades. The remains of the paper crumble into dust over his feet, leaving a perfect impression of the seal on Kakashi’s skin. The sealer then repeats the process with Kakashi’s other arm.

Kakashi wiggles his fingers. They feel fine. The fat strokes of the seal remind him of Gai’s eyebrows - but longer, stretched out like snakes. His face scrunches, sore and disgusted.

He shoves a bolt of chakra to his fingertips - and nothing happens. Sakumo’s hand moves down from Kakashi’s head to his shoulder, keeping him in place.

“Thank you,” Sakumo says. His voice is soft and tired.

The sealer nods and leaves. The other two strangers dip their heads in farewell. Makaze’s gaze is as sharp as hail and just as icy. Kakashi assumes he’s slept through the beginning of an argument, but Sakumo’s face is exhausted and pale, and reveals nothing. The two strangers are equally unmoved. Kakashi turns to Kyōsuke instead, and is met with a weary smile.

“Heya kiddo, sorry for barging in like this.”

Kyōsuke looks smaller without his silver armour. He’s a thin man, but not uncomfortably thin like Sakumo. His hair looks brighter in the snow-light and it spills down his neck like honey. He has an air of calmness about him that feels at odds with the busyness of his wife.

Kakashi shakes his head. He looks up at his father. “What did the General want? Are we in trouble?”

Sakumo sighs. “We’re under house arrest for the time being. But I don’t want you to worry about that. How are you feeling?”

“Is that why they’re here?” Kakashi asks, pointing to the yet-unnamed strangers. He ignores the question about his health and sniffs, and the snotty sound speaks for itself. “Who are they?”

“They’re our guards. They’re going to be looking after us for a short while.”

The guards introduce themselves: Samurai Sajin, with the sandy hair; and Samurai Rentaro, a short, oval-faced woman with brown skin. Both of the samurai bear shields in place of the distinctive, heavy armour. The lower half of Sajin’s face is hidden by a black neck guard that reaches up to his ears. It looks like a giant turtleneck. Kakashi touches the edge of his own mask and Sajin’s eyes crinkle with a smile.

“What are the rules?” Kakashi asks. If they’re under house arrest, then they’re criminals. And if they’re chakra-suppressed, then they’re dangerous. Kakashi doesn’t feel dangerous anymore, but he knows his father could kill the guards in a heartbeat, with or without ninjutsu. Yet, his father said this was only _for the time being_ , so there must be conditions to earning their freedom. They must apply to Kakashi, too, otherwise he wouldn’t be sealed.

“Rest,” Sakumo says. “And no weapons.”

Only one of those sounds like a rule. Kakashi frowns and crosses his arms, and the seals shimmer around his wrists. He shoves his sleeves back down.

He _feels_ a conversation over his head. He looks up to a variety of expressions, from Makaze’s resignation to Kyōsuke’s reassurance, and the unquestioning nothingness of the guards. Sakumo’s face is somehow more miserable and more empty than them all. It quells the spark of anger in Kakashi’s chest to something quiet and afraid.

He wishes there was a rule about his father’s happiness. He wishes he knew what it was so he could make everyone follow it.

“Fine,” Kakashi mutters, and he twists his hand into Sakumo’s shirt. He can behave. And when he does, perhaps his father will start smiling again.

“Thank you,” Sakumo says again, and his voice is just as soft and tired as before.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing progress is slow. Thanks for reading and your patience, and all comments are appreciated :)
> 
> In-fic Hatake OCs:  
> \- **Hisa / Samurai Yoshihime / Gran-Gran** : the matriarch, Sakumo's great-aunt  
> \- **Naruhito / Samurai Shizen** : a medic  
> \- **Makaze** : a young woman with curly hair, Samurai Kyōsuke's wife  
> \- **Samurai Kyōsuke** : a blond ranger and mentor, Makaze's husband
> 
> Other Major OCs:  
> \- **Samurai Sajin & Samurai Rentaro**: guards assigned to Sakumo and Kakashi during their house arrest


End file.
